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Article: Walter Chrysler rode the rails to GM, then started his own company.(SUPP)(Company overview)
- Article from:
- Automotive News
- Article date:
- September 15, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Crain Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Larry Edsall
Nearly a decade before he started his own car company, Walter P. Chrysler was the highest-paid employee in the U.S. automobile industry, making more than $600,000 a year at General Motors. Not bad for a guy who was sweeping floors in a Union Pacific Railroad machine shop for 4 cents an hour when he was 17.
Walter Percy Chrysler was born April 2, 1875, in Wamego, Kan., to a family whose German name was Greisler when it arrived in Canada. The family had moved to the American colonies in the 18th century.
Chrysler worked hard from the time he was a kid. He went door to door in Ellis, Kan., selling milk from the family cows, ...